Possession
by meenajon
Summary: By a twist of time and luck, Owen Harper never died. What choices would he make, and how would life be different for him?  Owen/Gwen themes.
1. Chapter 1

_**This is an idea that's been tooling about in my head ever since I finished the second season of Torchwood. It felt to me like the producers rushed through it, because they didn't wish to continue paying everyone's salaries. I don't know what the ratings were over in England, but they were fabulous here. So off we go, with my dreams of Burn Gorman traipsing about. Have fun! - M.**_

* * *

Owen looked at the note on his desk and shook his head. "Fine Jack, whatever. This is bollocks, it is." He crumpled the small piece of paper and tossed it in the bin. Maybe Cap'n Jack knew something they didn't. Shrugging, for once he followed the feeling in his gut that made him do what he was told.

An hour later he was knocked flat on his back, victim of a gunshot wound to the chest. Owen fought to catch his breath, struggling to pull air into his lungs as he felt a huge weight pressing on his chest.

"What's this?" He vaguely heard the voice of Dr. Martha Jones over him. She was attempting to administer CPR, which was the weight he felt bearing down on him repeatedly. "Oi, would you get off?" he demanded. Owen slowly sat up and pulled up his blue t-shirt to reveal the darkness underneath. He flinched as Gwen popped him on the shoulder.

"A right fright you gave us, Owen. What the bloody hell did you do THAT for?" she nearly yelled. He looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. Owen was unaware that Jack stood nearby, watching the faces of everyone gathered. He looked over his shoulder a moment at the now dead shooter, then focused his gaze on Owen, his eyes narrowing. He noted the redness on the front of Owen's shirt, then the torn packet of ketchup in the other man's front pocket.

"Why did you wear a vest, Owen?" Jack asked quietly. Owen turned to face him fully as Martha helped him to his feet. "What do you mean, 'why'? I did it because you told me to...that's why."

"No. I didn't," Jack returned, his voice a bit quieter than before. Everyone noticed it then. A slight chill passed over Owen's shoulders and he shook it off. Remembering the crumpled note sitting at the bottom of his waste bin, Owen protested. "Yes, you did!"

"No, I didn't," his commanding officer repeated. This time it came out slow and drawn out as Jack thought to himself.

"Yes, you did, Jack. I got the note on my desk. You told me to put on the Kevlar, and I figured you must know what you're talking about, so I did." Slowly it dawned on Owen that the tiny bit of paper had not only saved his life, but apparently he was the only one who had gotten one. He looked around him. Gwen's eyes were wide, but he noted that she'd not worn a vest. Then Tosh, who had begun to slowly inch back from Owen, as had Martha. Owen felt fear creep up on him as he looked back at Harkness.

"I should be dead," he said.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack stared in disbelief at the two papers in his hands. The writing on them was nearly identical. "I'm telling you, I didn't write this note!" he exclaimed to no one in particular. He raised up the one on the left, the same one that Owen claimed to have found sitting at his computer console earlier in the day. Then he looked again at the one in his right hand and shook himself.

"You must admit, it really is a good copy," Tosh said from over his shoulder. The look Jack gave her shut her up and she averted her eyes, avoiding further commentary as she found something else to do.

"Oi, Jack! The computer's finished its analysis," Gwen crowed from Owen's computer. She flipped the screen around, the words glaringly obvious to all in the small area.

**100 % Match**

Owen was leaning against Suzie's old table, his arms crossed as he thought to himself. He pursed his lips and shifted his weight to the other foot, looking up at them all. "So, what does this mean? I bloody well didn't write it."

"Well, apparently Jack did." Ianto walked into the room with tea for everyone. He was always there with a hot cup of tea whenever the group of them were like this: unsure and uncertain of what stood before them. As Jack looked at him with disdain, Ianto shrugged his shoulders and continued to pass out the tea.

"Jack, you have no recollection whatsoever of writing this note, correct?" Gwen asked before she sipped some of the hot liquid. "Dammit," left her lips as she burned the tip of her tongue. The next sip she took more carefully as her eyes watched him from over the rim of the teacup. This had unnerved even her. She was still watching Owen out of the corner of her eye, still slightly leery of the situation.

"No, I don't. I didn't write this note," he replied, denying it still. Owen watched the simple banter, ready to blow his top. He didn't care who wrote it at that point. Someone saved his life. Someone knew what was going to happen before it happened and he wanted to know who, how and why?

"I don't give a damn. I'm going home. You can sort this out," he said as he stormed out of the hub. Owen wasn't sure of where he was going until he was already in the lift to his apartment. He automatically went to where it felt safe.

A short while later, he was laying in bed, staring out the darkness of the floor to ceiling windows that made up several walls of his flat. He sighed, trying to quiet the little voices he was hearing, playing the same song over and over again within his mind.

_What if you hadn't gotten the note? Would you have died? Would you have lived, crippled and confused? Why did you get the note? Who wrote it? How did they know?_

Whispers of thought, over and over and over again in his mind. It could make a man mad after a while.

"Go away!" he screamed, to no one there. Owen nearly jumped out of his skin as the bell to his flat rang shrilly in the quiet. He ignored it the first time, but the second time it rang he wrapped a sheet around his naked form and padded over to the intercom. "Who is it?"

"Owen, it's me. Let me in."

Not who he expected at that late hour. He hit the buzzer to let his late-night visitor into the lift. Owen reached over and unlocked the door, leaving it slightly ajar as he walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed a carton of juice, drinking straight from it. The door opened and shut, and he didn't turn back around to face them until he heard the click of the lock. Slowly and deliberately he put the juice away, quietly shutting the refrigerator door before addressing who had entered.

"What do you want?" he said, his words barely audible on the cool night air.


	3. Chapter 3

"Nothing really. Just wanted to meet the wanker who's shagging my future wife."

Owen's eyes narrowed as he watched Rhys. The man was not completely stupid, a bit more above the bar than everyone had originally thought. His biggest failing was that he trusted Gwen to tell him everything. And even after all of it, even after she tried to let him in, there were little secrets that Owen held of her that were his, and his alone.

"Well, now we've met. In person. Alone," Owen said, cocking his head to one side. "Wait, excuse me, what are you doing here this late at night again? Couldn't you have just met me in a pub or something as equally mundane?"

Rhys shuffled his feet, looking at the ground as his lips twisted and he rocked on the balls of his feet. "Gwen's a bit distraught, you see. Practically inconsolable. I figured something must've happened on the job. I know she doesn't tell me everything, and by nelly, she's not telling me this one."

"Ah. Sorry about that, you see. I nearly died." Owen said it simply, without feeling. The tone of his voice was as numb as he felt in that moment. Even the idea that Gwen was so torn up about his nearly passing hadn't quite gotten through his thick noggin' yet. "Listen, bloke. I'm sorry that she's having such...a reaction to it. But I can tell you that no one has had it nearly as hard as I have. Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a hot shower and a bottle of single malt waiting for me to down it."

He didn't wait for Rhys' reaction; just began padding across the carpet to the liquor cabinet that he kept near the fireplace. He grabbed the decanter of scotch, ignoring the glasses altogether as he walked to the bathroom door. Pausing a second, he turned to look at Rhys - who was watching him curiously.

"Mind locking up on your way out?"

* * *

Gwen stood, chewing her lower lip as she looked at the door. Rhys had stormed out at half past ten and still had not come through it again. If she knew him he was sitting with his mates, downing a pint and watching a game. It's what he always did when something was bothering him. Why should this time be any different?

Not like she had helped much, either. The thought of Owen Harper being taken away from the world so swiftly like that was a cruel and unusual punishment. She didn't fancy the man half of the time, but he had taken away her own pain when nothing else - even Rhys - would. Rhys loved her, and he was a good man. But there was still that side of her, the dirty, deep down one, that only wanted what Owen could give.

Things had changed. Suzie. Diane. It made her realize how insignificant she was in Owen's eyes. But even that didn't matter. She'd spent three hours crying her eyes out and ate a pint of ice cream to boot. Jack kept telling her to try and keep some normalcy in her life...to try and take hold of Rhys with both hands and fly away. She couldn't do it. The job, and all of its trappings, had taken hold.

The sound of the door opening scared the shite out of her. She nearly jumped out of her skin as it slammed shut. Rhys walked in, shrugged off his coat, and sat down in the reclining chair opposite of where she was seated.

"You might want to go have a talk with your friend Owen," he said, almost too quietly.

"But Rhys, I don't think that's a good idea," she replied in nearly as quiet a voice. "I'm sure he wants to be alone right now."

"What a man wants and what a man needs are completely different things some times, Gwen Cooper. And I think right now that man needs a woman to get through to him. Now, I know you say you two are through with...with...whatever it was that was going on. But I'm telling you, he needs a friend with some sense right now!" The fact of the matter was that Owen's complete lack of reaction to him was disconcerting. It gave Rhys a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, and...though he would never admit it...he was worried about the wanker.

"Fine. I will go and see him. But only because you told me to." Gwen stood up and grabbed her keys, a copy of the apartment key that Owen had given her still attached. She'd never had the heart to return the damned thing. It would be like finally letting go of a piece of her she wasn't ready to do away with. "If you don't hear from me in a few hours, ring my phone, would you?"

Rhys nodded, giving her a hug and a knowing look, before kissing her lightly as he sent her on her way. "Don't forget to call me if you need my help."

Gwen smiled and reached up as she gave him a parting kiss, knowing that the man she was going to marry had just given her permission to steal away to another man's flat.


	4. Chapter 4

Hi there all. It has been quite some time since I've taken up the fanfiction helm. But a friend of mine told me it would be the right thing to do. And frankly, I've kind of missed it. Time to get back in the swing of things - though I did have to rewatch Torchwood Season 1 just to get a handle on it. Take care, and review as you like.

- M.

* * *

The sound of water running greeted her ears as she let herself in to the expansive flat that she once knew so well. She looked to the opposite side of the flat, and recognized well the doorframe guarding the entrance of Owen Harper's bedroom. She wasn't the first, nor the last, that Owen had bedded there - always trying to find an angle with his co-workers in any way possible. She was at one point sure that if Owen even leaned toward the masculine sex, he would have readily bedded Jack Harkness as well.

The door to the bathroom was cracked open, steam stealing away to the ceiling as Owen obliviously continued his cleaning routine. If she still knew him well enough, he was probably just standing there, letting the water ease the tension from his shoulders. She quietly shut the door behind her and laid her keys down upon the granite countertop, along with her bag and her jacket that she folded neatly upon the surface. Gwen Cooper sighed and closed her eyes as she listened. Rhys was right. Something didn't fit here.

The Owen she knew would be whistling away as he soaped himself up and rinsed himself down. From all the Rhys had told her, it was likely that Owen was suffering from shock. It's not everyday that you find out you should have been dead the sundown before. She knew that she would have freaked out completely. But, then again, women always were the more emotional sort.

With a deep sigh, Gwen walked over and eased open the bathroom door a bit.

"Owen?" she inquired tentatively. "Owen, may I come in?"

He did not answer her. Gwen walked in and put a hand upon the fabric curtain that hid the bather from the rest of the world. She was surprised to find Owen sitting upon the cold tile of the shower, his eyes closed as the water poured down upon him. This was most definitely not good.

"Owen, tell me what I can do."

The response she got was not what she expected, either. His eyes opened slowly, a clear look of fear within their depths as he stared off into the space behind her; not looking directly at her.

"There's nothing you can do. My number is up."


End file.
